Concerns of racism emerge after teen’s assault

Susan Palmer, Stefan Verbano

Tuesday

Sep 13, 2011 at 12:01 AM

CRESWELL — The 16-year-old black grandson of a woman who developed a landmark anti-racism program was beaten near Creswell High School after class on Friday, and the incident has spilled onto the Internet and into City Hall.

The Lane County Sheriff’s Office is investigating allegations of assault and intimidation that include racial slurs, but Lt. Byron Trapp offered few details on Monday. A dispatcher’s log indicated offenses of second-degree assault and first-degree intimidation, Trapp said.

But the news flew across the Internet after longtime anti-racism activist Bahati Ansari posted a picture on her Facebook page of her grandson, Jonah Scott Fernandez, with a bruised, swollen and cut face.

The incident also caused a ruckus of sorts Monday night when both Jonah and his mother, Christine Fernandez, among others, spoke publicly about the attack at a City Council meeting.

Their accounts prompted City Councilor A.J. O’Connell to call on the council to unanimously direct city staff to work with civil rights organizations to develop a city proclamation declaring Creswell to be a “racism-free zone.”

“We have to set an example for this community ... that racism, intimidation and bullying will not be tolerated,” O’Connell said.

But Mayor Bob Hooker and other councilors, while expressing concern and sympathy, said it was premature to go forward with such action, pending the outcome of the police investigation of the attack on Jonah.

“I won’t support anything on this short of notice,” the mayor said. “I think we are all jumping the gun. Why don’t we let law enforcement do their job? Until then, we don’t have all the facts.”

O’Connell’s motion to go forward with a proclamation was defeated 4-3, prompting angry shouts from some in the council audience. Councilors Jane Vincent and Mike Anderson joined O’Connell in support of the motion, while councilors Jean McKittrick, Jack Gradle and Bill McCoy joined the mayor in voting against.

Testifying before the council with a noticeable gash above his left eye, Jonah Fernandez said he doesn’t want any other student to encounter what he experienced.

“I know that something needs to be done, and I want to know what you are going to do and when you are going to do it,” he told the councilors.

He also said he had been advised by a school official that he should have taken a different route from school, and should not have walked home alone.

Christina Fernandez said she doesn’t view that as acceptable advice.

“I want kids, all kids, to feel safe walking around in (this) community alone,” she told the councilors.

Prior to the council meeting, Christina Fernandez said the attack occurred when Jonah was walking home on a trail near the high school and was approached by another youth — possibly 17 or 18 years old — who said something Jonah didn’t initially hear because he was wearing headphones and listening to music.

When he removed his headphones, the other person was calling him “the N-word,” and demanding his hat, she said.

Jonah refused to give it up and his assailant “head-butted” him, she said. Then other assailants came up behind him, knocking him down and kicking him in the head until he blacked out, she said.

“Through the whole thing, they were calling him racial epithets,” said Fernandez, reciting the order of events as described to her by her son.

It’s not clear whether his attackers were students, she said, but there were other students watching, Fernandez said. Only one, a girl, tried to intervene but she was threatened, Fernandez said.

Someone from a nearby house eventually intervened to stop the attack and called 911, she said. Her son was treated at the scene by paramedics, she said. He declined to be taken to the hospital.

Jonah is a junior and a new student at Creswell High. Last year, he attended high school in Albuequerque, N.M., where he lived with his grandmother, Ansari.

His mother described him as a dedicated student who takes Advanced Placement classes and who last year participated in ROTC.

Ansari worked with the Eugene School District to develop the Racism-Free Zone at Jefferson Middle School after her son objected to art depicting a lynching that was posted on the wall in his classroom in the 1980s. The program was later emulated at other schools both in and beyond Oregon.

Ansari has since moved from the Eugene area and now lives in New Mexico.

Creswell High, which has about 400 students, isn’t waiting for the investigation to respond to the incident, said Principal Gary Mounce.

The school plans a “day of kindness” today, a low-key answer that consists of signs posted where students hang out with quotes that remind them to treat each other with kindness, Mounce said.

“Everybody has had a day of being angry and upset about it,” Mounce said earlier Monday. “This is a way of responding to that.”

Students who witnessed the attack said it wasn’t students who assaulted the teen, Mounce said.

The trail where the attack occurred is on the southeast edge of the school parking lot and is used by many people in the community, not just students, Mounce said.

Christina Fernandez, who attended Creswell High when she was a teen, said the attack on her son has shocked her.

“It’s not as diverse as maybe South Eugene High School, but I never thought in a million years this would happen,” she said.

She said she hopes a quick response from the community will help make it a safe place for everyone.

“I want the community and the school to be aware and stop this in its tracks. No one deserves to be intimidated or bullied,” she said.

Ansari, reached by phone in Albuquerque, said creating a racism- free zone involves, among other things, teaching other students to speak up when they see people being harmed or bullied.

“Just use your voice. Just say, ‘Stop it. We don’t want this here.’?”

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